Moon Safari

Moon Safari wraps vocoders, Rhodes and analog haze around songs sturdy enough to survive the décor they inspired. Air make comfort sound deliberate rather than passive: melodies arrive softly, arrangements stay uncluttered, and the polish never quite erases the melancholy underneath. It aims at comfort where the records above it aim at confrontation. A decade of imitators copied the surface and missed the songs.

Analogue synths pointed at Gainsbourg rather than the dancefloor, made by two men from Versailles with no interest in being a club act. It sold the world on French sophistication and still sounds like a photograph left in the sun.